The Big Bang Burger Bar
by Puttyhead
Summary: The five-and-a-halfth book in the HHGG Trilogy.


Chapter 1

Ford Prefect woke up with a headache. A gargantuanly staggeringly pounding 17-too-many-pan-galactic-gargle-blasters kind of headache. This didn't bother Ford very much, as he'd woken up with similar, or worse, raging headaches before. It was the fact that he woke up at all that Ford found slightly odd, as the last thing he remembered was that he'd been suddenly snuffed out of existence due to a complicated bit of reverse temporal engineering involving a confused and angry teenager, Vogons, and a self-important black flying book. But Ford had learned long ago to roll with whatever came along and so, despite the fact that moving his eyeballs in their sockets felt like being given eight or ten good whacks across the forehead with a cricket bat, he felt pretty good.

After a few moments of readjusting his metabolism and concentrating on simply breathing, he looked around and determined that he was in some sort of plain but vaguely familiar office cubicle. It was not at all unusual for Ford to feel like he'd been in this particular office cubicle before though, because office cubicles are designed to be vaguely familiar to everyone. More to the point, these "Happiwall Workplace Sectioners" were designed "for happy, comfortable, motivated employees," as the the sales representatives for the Habrathet Standard Interior Wallforms Company are eager to tell you even if you don't want them to.

After a few more minutes of rubbing his head and making sure that all of his body parts were present and blood was in fact flowing to his brain, Ford determined that no, he obviously had been killed and he was now in Hell. But Hell or no Hell, he needed a drink. He got up and furtively wandered out into the maze of cubicles. Sunlight blazed in through a wall of windows but as much as Ford wanted to take a peek outside to get some idea of where he was, his screaming eyeballs told him to stay away from really bright light sources like flashbulbs or nuclear reactions. He headed for a door on the interior side of the room. As he moved toward it, a pretty young humanoid-looking person emerged fromanother cubicle and started walking toward him. Ford instantly adopted an air of casual nonchalance and passed by the woman with an airy wave and nod, as if he came into this building all the time and it certainly wasn't unusual for a scruffy ill-kempt shabbily dressed galactic hitchhiker to be strolling down an aisle between Happiwall cubicles. The woman smiled politely and passed by. Ford quickly grabbed the handle of the nearest door and ran out of the room of cubicles to what he hoped would be a way out of the building. His hopes were buoyed by the fact that he found himself in a long hallway with a bank of elevators nearby.

Once again Ford had the vague feeling of familiarity with the place. Some part of him wondered about this, but the part of him in search of a drink trumped the wondering part and he headed for the elevators. There was a pleasant "ding!" to announce that an elevator had just arrived to everyone on the floor, which at the moment consisted of just Ford Prefect, but at the next moment it was Ford and a very tall and gangly humanoid male with a dour but intelligent looking face who had just exited the elevator that had gone "ding!" and was now staring directly at Ford.

Ford imperceptibly flinched and was filled yet again by a vague sense, but this one was of uneasiness and foreboding. Ford instantly decided that he preferred the vague sense of familiarity.

"Ford!" the stranger exclaimed brightly. "I thought you might show up around now. I've been expecting you."

Chapter 42

No, not really. But as does not support galactic-standard PDF files, one would have to scoot his, her, or its fingers over to the venerable and largely unknown website known in sector ZZ9 Plural-Z Alpha as thebbbb dot com, where one would find hoopy PDF files of the entire book of The Big Bang Burger Bar, all for free, in all of its 65 chapters of miasmic glory.

Ford doesn't care anything about you, but hopes that you will enjoy.

Not the end.


End file.
